Ron Artest is an NBA enigma.

Every reporter who has ever interviewed him just once essentially falls in love with the guy*. He says all the right things and them some. He's endearing, one on one.

But follow him a little longer, and things get more complicated. You wonder if Artest can really "get it" as much as he seems to get it when he's talking. Most of his failings have been spectacularly public, and need not be rehashed here. But there are others, like the recent report from an anonymous NBA advance scout that Artest does not honor the play calls of his coach.

Put it all together and you get ... I'm not sure what.

I'll tell you this, though: at times he's as effective a player as I have ever seen. And as a man he's complex. There's a lot going on in there, and a lot of what he says, on face value is refreshing.  

For instnace, it has long struck me as a tad disappointing that while there are plenty of NBA players promoting various kinds of charitable efforts (reading, education, fights vs. various diseases etc.) there is a far smaller number who are on record as working against gangs, violence, and the illegal drug trade.

I know, it's a little trickier right? If you're from the wrong neighborhood, chances are you know plenty of people with ties to that game. And it makes sense to me that in a harsh world one might sympathize a little with the locals who might look out for the local basketball star, and buy them sneakers and the like.

(Carmelo Anthony spoke with great honesty about this a while ago. If you haven't read that, please do.)

Ron Artest has some first-hand knowledge about growing up in harsh conditions. He has friends and family who have been in the drug trade.

Which is why I salute him for speaking out against it all the same, in an interview with Michael Tillery of the Starting Five:

There are probably people in big business right now that were moving drugs to my neighborhood that you know people don't know anything about. At the end of the day, we didn't make cocaine where I'm from or we didn't have the machinery to make guns. We don't have that type of power or those types of resources. The drugs infest my people-my young little black brothas and sistas. It's my job to tell these kids that the only reason why drugs and guns are here is for you to shoot yourselves and to slow your thought process. You have two things there that can wipe ya'll out. One of my cousins made over a million dollars in my hood. He went to jail for seven years. My other cousin was moving drugs and went to jail for ten years. One of my other cousins got his head beat with a bat right in my hood. Either that's going to happen to you or you are going to kill one of your brothers or sisters. The drugs you give them might affect a baby about to be born. All you are doing by dealing drugs is affecting your people. You are killing your people and making a little bit of money on the side. ...

I want people who are growing up in poverty, in situations where drugs and violence are prevalent and are the norm, where education is not important because survival is more important. I want these people to realize there is another path, another way of life. You don't have to sell drugs. You don't have to shoot people. You need to stay in school, get an education; so you can get a job you enjoy and live a healthy lifestyle -- a lifestyle that doesn't negatively impact yourself or your neighborhood.

*I know, it happened to me once too, when he was the new kid in Indiana and I profiled him for HOOP. What a magnificent player, and he talks like an angel.

(Photo: Chad Buchanan/Getty Images)